Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a vest that lets Facebook users hug each other, from any distance.

The fashionable technology, dubbed Like-A-Hug vest, is being touted as "wearable social media" – it inflates to embrace wearers whenever Facebook friends "Like" items they post on the network, according to the website of designer Melissa Chow.

She worked with Andy Payne and Phil Seaton at the MIT Media Lab to build the puffy black vests, which, according to Chow's website, allows the wearer to "feel the warmth, encouragement, support, or love that we feel when we receive hugs."

You can return the favor simply by squeezing the vest and deflating it, therefore sending a hug right back to the original sender.

As Digital Trends pointed out, Chow's blow-up vest is not the first product to integrate technology with artificial contact. In April, robot enthusiast Hiroshi Ishiguro unveiled a body pillow designed to add physical sensation to phone calls.

The Hugvie user slips their smartphone into a pocket on the pillow, allowing vibrators inside of the padding to simulate a heartbeat, DT said, based on the tone and volume of the person on the other end of the line.

What is it with East Asian culture that makes these people think ideas like this are somehow useful or desirable? It can't be genetic, because the ones born here don't come up with shit like this. They have some of the highest population densities on the planet, and they're coming up with creepy ways for people to touch each other virtually, like they don't get enough bodily contact just on the way to work.

If you consider timewave theory of time as fractal which is speeding up and adding more and more complexity and novelty, towards singularity, it could be that we are using technology to transcend time and space, and will end up as a quivering bubble of interconnectedness sharing our thoughts and emotions in realtime, releasing massive amounts of DMT and achieving singularity and transcending into hyperspace.

If you consider timewave theory of time as fractal which is speeding up and adding more and more complexity and novelty, towards singularity, it could be that we are using technology to transcend time and space, and will end up as a quivering bubble of interconnectedness sharing our thoughts and emotions in realtime, releasing massive amounts of DMT and achieving singularity and transcending into hyperspace.

Either that, or nuclear war with Iran.

We lost a guru 12 years ago._________________Always do the opposite of what SJWs say.

Obama played the race card. Hillary played the woman card. America played the Trump card.

Are you suggesting that D Adams was using some form of "teledildonics" when he pegged it? No wonder both he and Stephen Fry love Macs. I may have to visit the gym he had his heart attack in if this is true.

Are you suggesting that D Adams was using some form of "teledildonics" when he pegged it? No wonder both he and Stephen Fry love Macs. I may have to visit the gym he had his heart attack in if this is true.

Um, no. You didn't get the reference _________________Always do the opposite of what SJWs say.

Obama played the race card. Hillary played the woman card. America played the Trump card.

If you consider timewave theory of time as fractal which is speeding up and adding more and more complexity and novelty, towards singularity, it could be that we are using technology to transcend time and space, and will end up as a quivering bubble of interconnectedness sharing our thoughts and emotions in realtime, releasing massive amounts of DMT and achieving singularity and transcending into hyperspace.